Thursday, April 19, 2012

There Ought To Be A Law.

My column in the Ottawa Citizen today is about the custom of Canadian ministers and mandarins alike striking off into a lucrative Beijing-Ottawa circuit of revolving doors, post-employment sinecures, appreciative board appointments and second-career retirement paths.

For decades, Ottawa’s foreign policy elite has been wholly unencumbered by scruple in its intimacies with Beijing. All you have to do is look at who’s sitting on the boards of the Canada-China Business Council, the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, the Canadian investment-law firms that do business in Beijing, or the Chinese investment conglomerates that do business in Canada.

Here's what the 2006 Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders has to say:

“Public office holders shall not act, after they leave public office, in such a manner as to take improper advantage of their previous office. Observance of this Part will minimize the possibilities of: (a) allowing prospects of outside employment to create a real, potential or apparent conflict of interest for public office holders while in public office; (b) obtaining preferential treatment or privileged access to government after leaving public office; (c) taking personal advantage of information obtained in the course of official duties and responsibilities until it has become generally available to the public; and (d) using public office to unfair advantage in obtaining opportunities for outside employment.

"After Leaving Office - Prohibited Activities 27. (1) At no time shall a former public office holder switch sides by acting for or on behalf of any person, commercial entity, association or union in connection with any specific ongoing proceeding, transaction, negotiation or case to which the Government is a party and where the former public office holder acted for or advised the Government. (2) Nor shall former public office holders give advice to their clients using information that is not available to the public concerning the programs or policies of the departments with which they were employed, or with which they had a direct and substantial relationship.

"28. Subject to section 29, and to the object of this Code, former public office holders, except for ministers for whom the prescribed period is two years, shall not, within a period of one year after leaving office: (1) accept services contracts, appointment to a board of directors of, or employment with, an entity with which they had direct and significant official dealings during the period of one year immediately prior to the termination of their service in public office; or (2) (a) make representations whether for remuneration or not, for or on behalf of any other person or entity to any department, organization, board, commission or tribunal with which they had direct and significant official dealings during the period of one year immediately prior to the termination of their service in public office; and (b) in the case of former ministers, make representations to a minister in the Cabinet who had been a Cabinet colleague of the former minister. . ."